Saturday, January 7, 2017

Great Melodies In Classical Music [Part 1]

I am always reluctant in doing a musical post like this in picking the top pieces in any category as I know I will always forget so many obvious pieces, and I will rightfully hear from my loyal readers, why didn't you choose this piece or that piece. :-)

Classical music has plentiful beautiful melodies

In these next two weeks I will dive into danger by trying to pick the top 20 pieces with beautiful melodies [or top 20 melodies]. This will be in contrast with the greatest pieces of classical music, as many of those you will not see on this list-this only has to do with melodies. For example if I were to do a post on the greatest classical pieces, I would have Beethoven's 9th symphony as #1. It does not show up on this list as do not many of the other great classical music works. This is only about beautiful melodies. So, my goal is not for you to say, "that is a great piece", but rather, "that has a beautiful melody in it." Also, I have limited my list to just instrumental works [symphonies, concertos, sonatas, chamber music] because there are so many great beautiful melodic arias from the operatic genre that it would squeeze out some instrumental only pieces. That is why you will not see a beautiful melodic aria like "O' mio babino caro" in my selections.It took me a while to do this, as I make a list, I keep making changes and also keep changing the order. But I must finally come up with a final top 20, and here they are.This week I will give choices 11-20 [in reverse order] and next week on the Tales classical music weekend I will give choices 1-10. The list will include melodies from the Baroque, Classical and Romantic Eras of classical music. Without further ado, the Tales picks of top beautiful melodies are included in the following pieces [11-20]:#20 W.A. Mozart: Piano Concerto #23 in A Major, Movement 2, Adagio:
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